Presentations

During the spring of 2026

Presentation at Vetenskapsfestivalen

Amanda Rikner Martinsson, PhD student in the project, delivered a presentation at Vetenskapsfestivalen 2026 during the item “Sanning & konsekvens – om tilliten till forskningen”; “Truth & consequence – about the trust to science”. During the presentation, Swedish high school students took part in conversations about how one can understand and navigate in today’s news feed. She explained how adolescents’ climate change worry can express itself differently today; from a strong engagement to sometimes feeling overwhelmed and needing to distance oneself from climate-related news. She emphasized that this does not necessarily mean a decreased interest, but can be a way of coping with difficult emotions.

A central focus during the presentation was trust in scientific research and climate science, connected to the current project “To trust or not to trust? Youth’s attitudes, emotions, and trust in climate change science”. Results have shown that Swedish high school students who have a higher trust in climate scientists, and who believes that climate change is a real threat, also tend to be more engaged in climate change issues in their everyday life, for example in their home. This connection persists even when considering other factors such as gender, parental norms, personal attitudes and perceived knowledge. Trust in technical and scientific solutions are also connected to a greater climate engagement. A possible explanation to this result is that trust can strengthen the feeling that change is possible, and that one’s own actions matter. This can in turn make it easier to engage in the climate issue, even though it can sometimes feel overwhelming.

Finally, Amanda shared some concrete perspectives on how young people can relate to the climate issue in a way that both enables engagement and promotes well-being, for example by finding a balance between accessing information about the climate issue and focusing on what can be changed.
Vetenskapsfestivalen, Gothenburg, April 17th 2026

During the summer of 2025

Ojala, M. (2025). Difficult climate emotions among late adolescents: What role does social trust play in the associations with general mental wellbeing and climate-friendly behaviour? ICEP (International Conference on Environmental Psychology) 2025, Vilnius, Lithuania, June 15-18. 

During the spring of 2023

Based on the online study

Gustafsson, K. (2023) “Listen to the Science”. The Climate Youth Movement’s Trust in Science. The XX ISA World Congress of Sociology (June 25-July 1, 2023). Accepted for oral presentation in the session: "Roles and Impacts of Non-State Actors for Climate Change Mitigation"

Based on a pilot study to the main survey study

Ojala, M. (2023). Youth’s trust in technological solutions to the climate-change problem: Associations with hope and climate-change engagement. ICEP 2023, Aarhus, Denmark, June 20-23, Accepted for symposium presentation. Chair: Dr. Marlis Wullenkord.